Alongside Chris Stapleton and Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell is part of that generation of songwriters who are raising the bar for country music today. Theirs is a country music that tends towards Americana, that rattle-bag music genre that mixes country, rock’n’roll, blues and folk. This is what makes the former member of the Drive-By Truckers a worthy heir to the outlaws of the 1970s (Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Tompall Glaser, etc.) but also to people like Bob Dylan (his idol, the lyrics to whose Boots of Spanish Leather are tattooed on his arm) Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Bruce Springsteen or Ryan Adams. With The Nashville Sound, the southerner from Alabama hardly changes his tune in terms of substance, but really gets worked up around the form. With his up tempo numbers, this record is more rock than the two that came before. Like for his cinematic 2015 album Something More Than Free, his group 400 Unit is on hand, only this time Isbell notes it on the liner: surely a signal of their importance, or a way of copying the Boss, whocredits the E-Street Band on some of his albums… Produced by the ubiquitous Dave Coob, The Nashville Sound brings together some of the artist’s best songs. Through his histories of small people (Cumberland Gap), of fixes, fights and the life of outsiders, and even politics (Hope the High Road), Jason Isbell shows that he is on top of his game. And this time, even more so. Much more…